Allentown School District to significantly scale back full-day kindergarten

View full sizephoto courtesy Allentown School DistrictThe Allentown School District Administration Center.

In the face of a $12.3 million budget gap, the Allentown School District is looking to significantly reduce its full-day kindergarten offerings.

The amount of full-day kindergarten classrooms will be scaled back from 38 to 14, for a savings of about $1 million, according to Karen Boardman, executive director of elementary education.

That means the all-day classes previously available to 800 students will now only be available for 250, Boardman said during a school board education committee meeting Thursday.

School board members and officials alike called full-day kindergarten a great benefit for students that they hate to cut. But, they said, it is not a mandated service and must fall victim to this year’s budgetary cuts.

“What I’ve learned in 11 years is sometimes we have to make difficult decisions for the greater good,” Boardman said. “This is one of those decision.”

But while the amount of classes are being reduced, the classrooms will be reshuffled so that each elementary school will have one full-day kindergarten class.

Currently, full-day classes are being offered only in six buildings, serving eight schools, Boardman said.

Effective next year, one full-day kindergarten class of 25 students will be offered in each of the district’s 14 elementary schools, she said.

“Some students who didn’t have the opportunity to take it before will now have the opportunity,” said school board President Robert Smith Jr.“Even though we’re cutting it, it’s amazing you’ve created that opportunity.”

Superintendent Russell Mayo said the district very much supports the idea of full-day kindergarten, and he hopes to reinstate it more fully in future years if the budgetary situation improves.

“We won’t forget,” Mayo said. “We’ll keep it out of there for a few years, and if we’re finally better off, we’ll start moving in that direction. It’s just right now we can’t.”

That $5.6 million figure included the $1 million in savings expected from the full-day kindergarten cuts, Mayo said.

Scaling back full-day kindergarten will eliminate 14 teaching positions through attrition, Boardman said. Nobody will lose their jobs as a result of the cuts.

The budget is expected to be discussed further at the school board’s finance committee meeting on April 19.

Board member Scott Armstrong joined others in voicing disappointment at scaling back all-day kindergarten, but described it as a necessary step.

“We can’t govern on desire, we have to govern on reality,” Armstrong said to Boardman. “I think you’ve come up with a very sensible solution to meed the needs of the moment.”

The six elementary schools that currently have no all-day kindergarten classes are the Hiram W. Dodd, Jefferson, Lehigh Parkway, Muhlenberg, Ritter and Union Terrance elementary schools, Boardman said.